For teachers of English or other languages, and for students of English or other languages

Friday, December 30, 2011

773. I teach in this city

One day teacher of English A said to teacher of English B, “I want to tell you what I do with one of my groups of English. The classes are extra-school assistance and for fostering speaking in English. In the second half of the classes we play games (you can see some on post # 259). At that time I pretend I cannot speak Spanish and they accept the treat, as something amusing.

The thing is that in this group there are kids of different ages. What I do is combining games of different levels: a simple one, and next a higher level one. Anyway, I try to rope all the students in the class in the same game.

For example, an older student may demand some conversation, talking naturalistically, about this, about that, whereas the youngest one tries to grasp as much as he can.

Another point: the youngest kid needs to move around the large room every 5 or 10 minutes – he’s 9. At times I give him some instructions to carry out. Sometimes I ask one of the older students to give the young kid some instructions. For these older students it may be the first time they use English in a naturalistic way, as in the on-the-spot conversations.” / Photo from: albaicinviajescondestino com. This is an awesome district of Granada, where I live. The district is, as you can see, at the outskirts of muslim Alhambra palace. Albaicín, the name of this area has an Arabic origin.